"The master program has given me a path to this profession, for what I will be forever grateful."

22/02/2016

Pavel Volosciuc, a ZLOGger ‘11 from Moldova, is always on the go. He has
recently accepted employment with Amazon as Program Manager, having
worked previously for Accenture, Vestas and KPMG. From Russia, Denmark
and Germany, to Luxembourg. This is surely an adventurous career path so
far.

Congratulations on your latest post! You must be very excited about all the new challenges ahead?Thank
you. Indeed, truly excited about the opportunity to join such an
innovative and customer focused company as Amazon. It is rare for a
business to both grow at 20% per year and have more than 100 Billion USD
in revenue. That combination creates unique culture, operational
challenges and potential for professional growth. Needless to say, when
it comes to supply chain management, the scale and complexity, at which
Amazon operates, makes it an exciting place for a ZLOGger.

How do these new responsibilities compare with those of previous jobs? Are they more demanding or simply different?Probably
both. The pace at which the company is growing, as well as the amount
of highly motivated and knowledgeable employees, creates a rather
demanding work environment. One of the Amazon leadership principles is
called “Bias for Action”, and from first glance, I can tell that
initiatives that would be planned on a 2-3 year horizon in other
companies, here get initiated and delivered in a year’s time. My new
role as Program Manager, will require a combination of all previously
learned skills and much more. Issue driven approach, project and
stakeholder management from consulting, as well as ability to work with
large data sets from auditing will be key to finding solutions to
problems. Working in cross-functional teams and constantly learning from
colleagues will be required to deliver these solutions, make them
sustainable, and grow my skillset along the way.

Specifically,
how has the ZLOG master program influenced your career path? What are
the most significant aspects of the master that you have applied at work
to achieve success?In my case, before coming to ZLOG, I had no
prior experience in supply chain management or logistics. The master
program has given me a path to this profession, for what I will be
forever grateful. In terms of specifics, I believe ZLOG most importantly
provides unmatched end-to-end knowledge of supply chain management
concepts and gives students the practice grounds to learn how to
effectively work in diverse teams. These two pillars are the foundation
of achieving success in operations within large multinational companies.

Russia, Denmark, Germany and now Luxembourg – do you embrace the change of lifestyle, or is this also a challenge for you?This
was never my plan, and at the same time, I have never shied away from
taking on a new challenge, no matter which country it brings me to. It
doesn’t come without drawbacks, but moving around is something to be
expected if you truly want to maximize the learning curve and experience
gained during the initial stages of one’s career.